Side Effects
by Phoebsfan
Summary: "Six years ago, a man he didn't know stepped through time and saved his life. A man he suddenly had a history with, a history that went beyond the last six years. A man who claimed that they had changed things when he survived an attack from the dinosaur that killed Evan's wife." A Post Series Fic
1. Chapter 1

Dylan was in the field when it happened. Images flooded her mind, playing back behind closed eyes. Voices, familiar yet not, in her ears; the noise near deafening. Emotions raced through her veins intoxicating and confusing.

All of it together was enough to knock her back, almost as if she had been physically assaulted. Enough to chase the air from her lungs. She stumbled backward and a strange man, one she'd never seen before—or had she—caught her before she could hit the ground as she tried to catch her breath.

"What is it?" he hissed quietly, so as not to startle the animal they were tracking.

She had a million questions and, strangely enough, a million answers that her brain was trying to sort through.

Where was Evan? What happened to them? Where was she? Who was she with? Why wasn't she back where they started?

She remembered going through the anomaly clearly. Evan was worried they'd changed something and the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach seemed to confirm it, as the other anomalies started closing around them. She hadn't needed any direction as instinct had taken over and they had both booked it to their gateway, praying they'd reach it in time.

But when she stepped through... nothing.

"You're freaking me out, Weir. What's up?" the man with her persisted as he guided her to the ground and spoke swiftly into his radio, asking for backup.

She sat in stunned silence, the forest alive around her, as her mind spun through countless scenarios. It was like a door had opened and suddenly there was a whole new set of memories behind it. Of people and places she'd never been to or met before. Contradictory pathways arguing with each other in her brain. She knew who she used to be and she knew who was.

For example, the man she didn't recognize not even a full minute prior now had a name and it seemed they suddenly had a shared past.

"I'm fine, Miller. Stop being a baby, we've got a job to do," she brushed him off and stood up as the memory of their first meeting flashed through her mind.

He'd joined the department after Drake's funeral and had been her partner ever since. She had memories of him giving her a hard time. Of sharing war stories. He had even saved her life once. But another part of her screamed out that all of that was wrong. She'd joined Evan and his band of misfits after Drake's death. She'd spent the better part of a year relocating prehistoric animals not responding to calls about wandering wildlife.

The pieces finally all started to shift into place, and the longer she thought about it the clearer things became. When they'd come back through to their time, things had changed... in unexpected ways. They hadn't simply stepped back through the anomaly, they had stepped back into new lives. She was still with Predator Control, in this time line she had never met Evan Cross. Never known about anomalies or the prehistoric creatures that crossed through them. Never caught what had killed Drake. Never crossed over into other times. There had been a few suspicious cases, but higher powers had always seemed to step in and classify them, bringing their own task force to apprehend animals that never seemed to match the evidence left behind.

Her alternate self had been driven to solve Drake's murder, but without any resources had ultimately been left with nothing. Even now as the answers she knew filtered through her brain part of her filled with anger at the people who had kept her from the truth, and another with awe at the idea of time traveling dinosaurs.

Yet somehow a sense of peace and a knowledge that she had been fixing things and saving other people from the same fate permeated it all. Feelings, she was sure stemmed from that other life. The one she had only minutes before, where she certainly hadn't been in the field with a new partner. One where she had been with Evan, trying to put things back where they belonged. One where she had left her job to join up with a group of people who had quickly become her friends. A job that had swallowed her life and become who she was.

It was as if she were two people and she supposed it made sense, the last six years of her life were different. Subtle changes at first, but in the last few months her life had taken a nosedive in an entirely different direction.

"Are you sure you're alright?" her partner questioned as she shook her head to focus on the task at hand and she started forward again.

No, but she had to do her job so she could find Evan. She had to find out if he was alright, if he remembered and just what they were going to do now.

She had to find out if he made it through or if she was alone.

"Yeah, let's just get this over with."

* * *

Evan was sitting in a meeting with a new client when everything he thought he knew flipped upside down. He smiled politely and let Ange keep talking as he zoned out and let the memories rush through him.

He'd been waiting for this to happen for six years.

They'd had all kinds of ideas how it would happen. Theories on whether or not there would be two separate versions of himself or if the memories from the old time line would just come to him one day when they finally caught up. It made more sense that it happened this way, in this reality he never made it to the anomaly, so he shouldn't have been able to end up there upon reentering his world. And he was grateful there weren't two of him, the problems that would have caused were not something that they had wanted to deal with.

"If you don't have any more questions for me, Ange can take care of the rest of the paperwork," he said standing and making his way to the door. Ange gave him a strange look but he brushed it off with a smile and shrug, he could tell she was trying not to roll her eyes in front of their new contract.

Six years ago, a man he didn't know stepped through time and saved his life. A man he suddenly had a history with, a history that went beyond the last six years. A man who claimed that they had changed things when he survived an attack from the dinosaur that killed Evan's wife.

Mac had told him about all of this, about how one day he'd know all of it was true, and at first he had been too torn up over Brooke's death to want to listen, but eventually he had, and ever since he'd been more than eager to catch up with himself. Originally, it had been because he wanted revenge for Brooke's death. But working with Mac, and then Toby, had changed that for him. Somewhere along the way he had come to terms with what had happened and his quest had shifted to stopping it from happening to other people.

Mac had been there to help but ultimately he hadn't had any of the answers they'd needed.

As his mind filled with memories of a time line that this world forgot, Evan remembered. Now he had those answers they'd been searching for. Now they had a way to fix things.

He rushed down to the Special Projects department and burst through the door.

"Toby! Mac!" he called out as he made his way to a terminal and pulled up the designs, plugging in numbers and missing information; solving those problems that had haunted them for almost six years. Without Mac's device, trying to put together a detection system had been nearly impossible. There had been entirely too many casualties as a result. Drake. Natalie. Mac had still lost Sam when an anomaly had opened up and spit out some overgrown bug on an airstrip near where she had been spending a weekend away.

With no way to track the anomalies, there had been no way to stop any of it. It seemed that although they opened to similar points in time, when they opened varied from the previous time line. And although they were working on recreating a detection device, they had been years away from a working model. The best they could do was listen for reports of strange animals or 'strange glowing portals through time.' It hadn't been near enough.

"It happened?" Toby questioned as she rushed over to stand next to him, watching over his shoulder. Mac came around the corner at a more leisurely pace and Evan looked up and grinned.

"It's good to see you again," Evan smirked. "Even if you are a pain in the ass, I'm kind of glad you didn't die."

"Yeah, well that's probably your fault. I take it from your enthusiastic greeting you finally caught up." Mac paused leaning against the counter across from them, then asked. "You figure it out?"

"Yes. It's all here. How come you never told me about Ange?" Evan asked a moment later, as memories their short lived fling among other things filled his mind.

"Not my business."

No, he supposed it wasn't. Not that any of it would have mattered, Ange had met someone shortly after Brooke's death, the two of them had been married for three years. And while part of him felt the personal loss, another part of him had seen how happy she was. She hadn't been the same crutch in this time line, he hadn't needed her to hold him together in the same ways. Maybe knowing how things had been before, having Mac and Toby as well as Ange, had changed him too.

It wasn't really surprising then that Mac hadn't said anything. Besides Evan had always had this theory that Mac preferred Dylan over Ange.

Dylan.

She'd only ever been a name to him before this. It had been easy to keep her out of all of it that way. If things had really gone like Mac said they did, which now he had confirmation of for himself, then he hadn't wanted to involve anyone else. They had needed Toby, and Mac had let the cat out of the bag before Evan could stop him, but Dylan...

He worried about what happened to her. If she was at this very moment trying to come to terms with her new set of memories. It was weird enough for him, and he had known it was a possibility. For her it would have been completely unexpected. It was a point Mac had argued long and hard about. A point, he might have been right about.

As much as Evan had pretended to understand, he had no clue until now. Dylan would find them. She would be angry when she found how he had known all along. It had been hard enough not to approach her at Drake's funeral., the only time he had ever crossed her path in this time line, and then he hadn't known her like he knew her now.

He wasn't sorry. He thought he had been making the right choice. What good would it have done her to know that Drake was going to die? It was hard enough not to stop his wife's death, and he still lived with that every day, or would live with it every day now, he didn't wish that kind of guilt on anyone let alone her. Even if she had been a complete stranger at the time.

She wouldn't have believed a word out of his mouth anyway.

But now...

His fingers hesitated over the keys.

"So, are you ready to revisit the Dylan topic?" Mac was the one to bring it up. "Since I expect she'll be knocking down your door at any moment now."

"We made the right choice," he had to believe it. "...for the time being."

"She's been a ghost in this room for almost six years now. I, for one, am glad to finally get to meet her," Toby chirped as she knocked Evan out of the way and took over at the keyboard.

A ghost the other Evan hadn't ever met. A ghost he now couldn't imagine doing this without.

His excitement over finally having the information they needed to continue faded as the meaning of what had been before finally started to settle in. As Dylan's memory started to wind itself around his heart and a rush of emotions washed over him in a heavy waves almost drowning him.

It was the oddest sensation. Not knowing someone five minutes ago, then suddenly knowing so much about them it felt wrong not to have them around all the time. Trusting them with some of your darkest secrets. Knowing they'd do anything for you.

He had to find her. He had to be the one to find her first. He owed it to her. He couldn't imagine the confusion and fear she must be experiencing but he wanted to be there with her to help. No, he needed to be there with her. She would have done the same for him.

He turned toward the door and started out.

"Yeah, probably best you find her first. She might forgive you that way," Mac called after him.

"You're leaving now?" Toby questioned in disbelief.

"I got this. Go get Dylan," Mac called out to Evan's back as Evan started jogging toward the door.

He didn't question the urgent need to confirm Dylan's safety, or his sudden shift in priorities as he made his way through Cross Photonics. All he knew was that he couldn't lose anyone else in this messed up game with time and that he needed her to make things right again. And as he ran the old Evan burned away, consumed by the realities and connections made in a time line that had been erased.

* * *

He was waiting for her leaning one shoulder causally against side of her van when she made her way back to where she'd parked it on her way to investigate the mountain lion sighting. A few news crews were still milling around the park interviewing people. Her partner was busy helping load the now tranquilized animal into a cage for transport while she was supposed to be changing out of the clothing their heavily sedated friend had marked in the process of taking him down. Which was probably her least favorite part of the job.

"Part of me thinks I should be mad at you," she grumbled as she brushed past him, her shoulder knocking his playfully. "Though I'm not entirely sure why that is." He used the momentum from her impact to turn around and place the offended shoulder against the van watching her as she opened the back door and placed her tranq gun inside.

He was relieved she recognized him.

"Part of me thinks you deserve to be," he answered back his eyes following her as she climbed up into the back of the van. He walked around behind the van and watched as she peeled her jacket off and dropped it by her feet. Her shirt followed but she tossed it in the corner before grabbing a new one from a gym bag. He didn't comment as a new jacket also appeared beside the shirt. When she pulled the new shirt on and he caught a glimpse of the pale skin of her lower back, he bit his tongue.

There was nothing overtly sexual about the movement, to the contrary it was quick and efficient and she was wearing an undershirt the entire time, but something in him appreciated the way the fabric swept against her side and her hair fell carelessly down her back as she let it drop after pulling it out from under the new shirt. She pulled on the jacket and something new stirred, as the part of him who had never really met her took in the flair of her hips and the way her Predator Control jacket hugged her chest.

To put it lightly, it was weird. Sure he'd noticed before that Dylan was a young attractive woman, but she'd always been... off limits? Maybe there had been a time when he'd entertained the possibilities for a moment, but he'd never really let it go anywhere. They were colleagues, friends, there was no room for anything of a more sexual nature between them, yet something was clearly different.

If she noticed it she didn't comment on it, instead she stood above him, her hands on the ceiling of the van, and grinned.

"You come to offer me a job?" she asked and he answered her with a smile.

"You're gonna have to do better than that. I mean I love my job with Predator Control. What do you have to offer me?" she teased.

His fingers itched to touch her. To wrap themselves around her slim waist and pull her down to eye level. To brush the hair from where it stuck to the cut on her cheek.

The cut she'd gotten in another lifetime. He was surprised it hadn't healed, or more accurately that it existed at all.

"Your cheek..." he pointed and she rolled her eyes as she lowered herself to sit on the edge of the van, legs hanging down next to him. Her thigh brushing against his lightly as she leaned back and grabbed a first aid kit.

"You know how hard it was to explain the sudden appearance of an injury like this. I had to convince my partner that I walked into a tree branch. I'm never gonna live that down."

"It's still probably easier than explaining it's an injury from another time line and that you've just stepped into another person's consciousness through a glowing portal in time."

"Well, I guess when you put it that way. Clumsy is probably better than crazy."

"Don't sell yourself short."


	2. Chapter 2

He was waiting for her, leaning one shoulder causally against side of her van when she made her way back to where she'd parked it on her way to investigate the mountain lion sighting. A few news crews were still milling around the park interviewing people. Her partner was busy helping load the now tranquilized animal into a cage for transport while she was supposed to be changing out of the clothing their heavily sedated friend had marked in the process of taking him down—her least favorite part of the job.

"Part of me thinks I should be mad at you," she grumbled as she brushed past him, her shoulder knocking his playfully. "Though I'm not entirely sure why that is."

He used the momentum from her impact to turn around and place the offended shoulder against the van, watching her as she opened the back door and placed her tranq gun inside.

He was relieved she recognized him.

"Part of me thinks you deserve to be," he answered back his eyes following her as she climbed up into the back of the van.

He walked around behind the van and watched as she peeled her wet jacket off and dropped it by her feet. Her shirt followed but she tossed it in the corner before grabbing a new one from a gym bag. He didn't comment as a new jacket also appeared beside the shirt. When she pulled the new shirt on and he caught a glimpse of the pale skin of her lower back, he bit his tongue.

There was nothing overtly sexual about the movement, to the contrary it was quick and efficient and she was wearing an undershirt the entire time, but something in him appreciated the way the fabric swept against her side and her hair fell carelessly down her back as she let it drop after pulling it out from under the new shirt. She pulled on the jacket and something new stirred, as the part of him who had never really met her took in the flair of her hips and the way her Predator Control jacket hugged her chest.

To put it lightly, it was weird. Sure he'd noticed before that Dylan was a young attractive woman, but she'd always been... off limits? Maybe there had been a time when he'd entertained the possibilities for a moment, but he'd never really let it go anywhere. They were colleagues, friends, there was no room for anything of a more sexual nature between them, yet something was clearly different.

If she noticed it she didn't comment on it, instead she stood above him, her hands on the ceiling of the van, and grinned.

"You come to offer me a job?" she asked and he answered her with a smile. He wondered how it was possible to miss someone you didn't know an hour ago. Someone he'd just barely left. This new reality was going to take some getting used to.

"You're gonna have to do better than that. I mean I love my job with Predator Control. What do you have to offer me?" she teased when he didn't speak.

His fingers itched to touch her. To wrap themselves around her slim waist and pull her down to eye level. To brush the hair from where it stuck to the scrape on her forehead.

The scrape she'd gotten in another lifetime. He was surprised it hadn't healed, or more accurately that it existed at all. Her cheek had also been scraped up in the cave in, but that damage hadn't transferred over time lines and as far as he could tell he wasn't wearing any of his battle wounds either.

"Your head..." he pointed and she rolled her eyes as she lowered herself to sit on the edge of the van, legs hanging down next to him. Her thigh brushing against his lightly as she leaned back and grabbed a first aid kit.

"You know how hard it was to explain the sudden appearance of an injury like this. I had to convince my partner that I walked into a tree branch. I'm never gonna live that down." she rolled her eyes and opened the kit, holding it on her lap as he searched for an alcohol swab.

"It's still probably easier than explaining it's an injury from another time line and that you've just stepped into another person's consciousness through a glowing portal in time." He smiled as he found what he was looking for and tore it open.

"Well, I guess when you put it that way. Clumsy is probably better than crazy." she chuckled dryly as he cleaned the blood from her head.

"Don't sell yourself short," she flinched as he hit a sore spot and he paused before continuing. "...I think anyone would agree giving up your career to chase a crazy man and his dinosaurs through time probably falls under the 'not all together right in the head' category."

"Who said anything about giving up my career? You still haven't done anything to convince me," she smirked holding up a bandage.

"Who says that's why I'm here?" he grabbed the bandage from her hand with his free hand and a grin.

All kidding aside, she was relieved he was here joking around with her. For a moment she hadn't known if this was something they'd ever get to do again. When she'd seen him leaning against her van she finally felt like she could breath again.

The desperate need to find him removed, her mind moved to other things. Things she didn't want to talk about. Things they lost.

Her face clouded over and she grabbed his hand, holding him in place.

Maybe that's why they were playing this stupid game. Pretending that they hadn't nearly lost everything. Or maybe they still had. She didn't know just how much had changed in this reality. Maybe Mac wasn't the only casualty.

"Evan..." she hesitated, her voice halfway between a sigh and a whisper.

"It's okay," he breathed his own sigh. "Things are different, but it's okay."

His hand was warm in hers, and she wanted nothing more than to wrap her arms around his neck and thank any one who was listening. She wanted to hold on to him for a minute more while her body confirmed his presence in a more physical manner. To feel the truth of his words pressed against her and the uncertainty of her worried heart. More than anything, she just wanted it to really be okay. Though she didn't have any idea how it could be.

He gave her hand a comforting squeeze.

Something was different with him. He seemed more at ease around her, like maybe the entire weight of the world wasn't resting on his shoulders anymore. The little creases around his eyes relaxed, like he wasn't always concentrating on finding or fixing time. His smile seemed to come easier or stay longer, she couldn't quite decide which. But mostly, he didn't seem upset like he should be.

Not even two hours ago he'd had to stand back as his wife was killed again, then watch his friend run to his own demise just to save the integrity of a somewhat shitty time line. The Evan she knew always seemed to have a raincloud hovering nearby waiting for that perfect trigger. Their time traveling train wreck of a day teemed with triggers. So why wasn't he more upset?

"Tell me," she relinquished his hand but his eyes still burned through her in an unfamiliar way.

She had always harbored a secret attraction for him, and her new time line self wasn't afraid to admit she found him good looking, but she'd always known nothing could come from it. Sure they'd flirt back and forth, but there was never any real danger of taking it too far. He would always be the ultimate in safe. He was a man you looked at—maybe had an idle daydream about—but secretly knew that anything more than friendship with, was next to impossible.

The heat in his look, however, said differently.

She broke eye contact, unsure what to make of the new development. He suddenly became very interested in applying the bandage in his hand to her injury.

He couldn't recall being so distracted by the way the wind played with her hair before. It was both unsettling and intriguing.

"I think when we came back our consciousness joined with the new time line. I remember both like I experienced both. Mac said that-" he started to explain to alleviate the sudden awkward tension, but before he could get anywhere she interrupted.

"Mac! He's okay?"

Her eyes lit up and the smile that broke across her weary face warmed his heart. How had he never stopped to pay attention to how expressive they were, or that little indent at the corner of her mouth?

"Yeah. He's fine," Evan smiled as Dylan leaned forward, her full attention on him. "Sorry, I should have started out with that."

"So he's been here all along?" she asked and he nodded.

"Yes."

She paused to let the new information sink in, glad that things were far better than she could have hoped for.

Evan hopped up on the edge of the van next to her and took the first aid kit from her lap.

"You knew this would happen, didn't you," she stated, certain in her belief. Mac hadn't died, which meant that Evan wouldn't have been alone and she doubted that Mac would have kept it all quiet.

"Mac said that if things change when you're an in an anomaly you're the only one who remembers them. We thought that it might be a possibility if you and I made it back before the anomaly closed."

She listened while Evan explained what she already knew.

They'd had six years to think this through. Evan, Mac, and six years. Six years to hypothesize and problem solve and just generally come to terms with the idea. He had known what was out there waiting for them.

If she was being honest with herself, she'd admit it stung a little.

"I see. In all of this discussion you were having, did it occur to you that I might be interested in participating?" she asked and Evan's face darkened as he turned it away from her, like maybe he had thought about it. Maybe he even felt a little guilty about it.

It made her feel slightly better about being left in the dark.

"You didn't know us. I didn't know you," he sighed, then picked up the pace, "And if I recall correctly, joining up with my merry little band of misfits wasn't exactly high on your list of things you wanted from life," he finished, his tone louder and more forceful. Trying to convince her that he'd been doing what was best.

She had to admit his reasoning made sense.

"Which you didn't know," she said softly, drawing his attention back to her face.

"Mac said you'd be pissed," he sighed again.

In a move that surprised him, Dylan placed her hand on his knee. He watched it as she spoke.

"I'm not pissed. I get it," she admitted. "It's just weird. You know? All of this... it's just..."

He smiled and met her eyes.

"Unreal," he stated, understanding her in a way that no one else would ever be able to.

It was comforting to know that he knew what she was feeling and that even if he had known it might happen, he would still have to deal with it actually happening.

"This morning I was a different person."

She rested her head against his shoulder.

"We all were."

He wanted to put his arm around her and offer some measure of comfort, but second guessed himself as she pulled her hand from his knee like maybe she hadn't realized she'd put it there in the first place.

"Yeah, I guess," she brushed it off as she pulled her head from Evan's shoulder. "So did you and Mac do anything else with the last six years other than discuss how pissed I'd be when I found out you were holding out on me?" she teased.

"I wasn't-" he groaned and she chuckled.

"You were, but let's forget about that for a minute."

Evan shoved her with his shoulder and she laughed as she shoved him back. Neither one of them heard her partner approaching.

"Hey Dyl, I'm gonna—who are you?" Nathaniel Miller asked as he came around the van to see the two of them laughing.

Dylan felt her stomach sinking as Nate's face grew cold and more memories of her 'partner' seeped into her awareness.

"Evan Cross," Evan answered for her, standing and offering the other man his hand, when Dylan froze. He sent her a confused look but she didn't seem to notice because she was too busy looking at the man who had interrupted them.

Dylan squirmed under Nate's scrutiny. She supposed he had a right to question her behavior with Evan. She'd have been shaken had he been flirting with another woman. It probably would have been nice to remember the exact nature of her relationship with Nate before Evan was thrown in to the middle of it as well. Little things, like the fact that she'd woken up in Nate's bed this morning, might have been wonderful to have before she had to face both of them together.

It also made her worry what else she wasn't remembering.

"How do you know Dylan?" Nate practically barked at Evan and Dylan tried not to cringe.

When it became clear that Evan wasn't going to get a handshake, or a name, he dropped his hand and tried to think of the best answer to the question.

"We just met actually," Dylan interrupted saving Evan from coming up with a suitable answer as she stood up, stepping forward and to the side. "He was just trying to be helpful."

Evan didn't fail to notice the distance she placed between them, or how she angled herself between their peeved visitor and himself as she took the other man's hand in both of hers.

"I see," Nate's voice softened and he smiled. "Well, I'm going to hitch a ride with Merrill and Jones and help with the release. Meet you back at the office later?"

She nodded.

"Okay," she murmured and he squeezed her hand before breaking free and heading over to join her coworkers as they finished loading the captive animal into the back of another van.

Evan watched her wave as the van pulled out, her shoulders slumping when it was out of sight.

"You'd rather work with him than us?" he asked after a moment and she turned to face him.

"I think we're supposed to be dating," she offered, her eyebrows pulled together, her hands palms up, as she drew her shoulders toward her ears.

"Well, that explains some things," he teased.

"You think?" she rolled her eyes and stepped forward, poking him in the chest with her index finger as she continued. "And you still haven't asked me to work with you."

"How long have you been seeing him?" the words were out of his mouth before he realized what he was saying and he immediately wished he could take them back. Thankfully, Dylan didn't seem to notice the breakneck speed with which he'd flung that potentially charged question at her.

Closing her eyes, Dylan dropped her hand and tilted her head back.

Things were fuzzy. Her memories were merging and it seemed more emotionally charged episodes were erasing less exciting moments of her life. The fact that she was having difficulty recalling Nate seemed to suggest that maybe they were on a road that was leading nowhere. Although another thought was that maybe it was all just too new.

Either way it was a complication she wasn't all that keen on having and it was frustrating as hell trying to remember what was really important. Like it or not, she had to live in this life that literally everyone around her knew. Everyone except for Evan.

"I don't think we've actually defined anything,"she finally spoke, as she opened her eyes and wandered back to the van. Evan watched her as she secured the first aid kit in its place against the wall of the van then closed the back door before she continued. "Part of me has no idea who he even is and the other part has this relationship with him. It's kind of weird actually, freaky."

She turned around to face him, then asked pointedly: "How's Ange?"

He deserved that.

"Married," he shrugged.

"Okay you win," she crossed her arms in front of her and offered him a sympathetic smile.

"Yeah, well it's better this way. At least I don't have to pretend with her," he didn't really know if he believed it but there wasn't anything he could do to change it. Part of him would probably always have feelings for her, but then she wasn't exactly who she had been either.

"I guess," Dylan sighed. "How did we get here?"

"No kidding," he agreed as she started toward the driver's side door. "So, you gonna stop by the office later? I know you know where it is."

She looked back at Evan, pausing and debating his question.

"If this is your way of asking if I want the job, I don't know."

"Look, I get it. If you don't want-" he started as he approached her.

"No. I do," she cut him off then paused for a minute as she tried to gather the words to explain her hesitation. "I can't imagine not doing what we were doing. It's just now I feel torn between the two options. I mean, I have this life. Or had? I don't know. It doesn't seem fair to the other me to just drop everything."

He nodded.

"I'd tell you that you could probably do both, but we both know how well that turned out last time..."

"Evan..." Dylan groaned as if she were looking to him for an answer. Sadly, he didn't have one. He pretty much ruined her life with this in the other time line. Now he was asking her to give it all up again because he was pretty sure she wouldn't be able to do both and eventually something would have to give.

He also couldn't tell her what to do about her romantic life. His was already decided for him, and he didn't envy her one bit. If she had real feelings for this man... Well he couldn't imagine her being happy when she was pretending she didn't have another life that didn't include that man. He couldn't imagine her face lighting up when she was lying to someone she cared about.

But he also understood her fears about betraying who she had been. That nagging doubt that haunted her decisions. What if the life she'd made here was better than the one she'd left? What if changing anything because it was different from what she remembered, made things worse?

He wished there was an easy answer, because he could use it too.

The only things he knew for certain was that they'd have to live with whatever they did and that they were who they'd been. Changing time lines had changed the circumstances and had altered things, but when it came down to the skin and bones of it all, they were the same people.

"You're her, you know. Your life is a little different now, but you are her and whatever you decide to do isn't betraying what you were doing before... in either time line," he offered.

She supposed he was right.

"I wish we could go back to this morning before any of this happened," she admitted. It would make things a hell of a lot easier.

"In which reality?" he joked.

"Not funny," she grinned and slugged him in the arm.

"You sure, cause you smiled a little there."

Rolling her eyes, Dylan opened the van door.

"I'm sure. Don't you have something better to do? You know, besides annoy me?" she tossed over her shoulder as she climbed in the van and started it.

Evan waited until she was all the way in then closed the door and waited while she rolled down the window.

"First you're upset that I left you alone for six years, now you're sending me away. You really are confused, aren't you?" he teased, leaning against her door.

"I'll stop by after work."

"You sure? I don't want to push you into anything," the concern in his voice was sweet, and she knew he meant it. Still she couldn't resist giving him a hard time.

"You didn't seem to have any problems with that before."

He turned his face away from her before commenting.

"And look how it turned out."

She couldn't mistake the sadness in his voice.

"Point taken."

She looked away as well, giving him a moment to collect himself.

"Do you want me to tell them, you're coming by later?" he questioned a heartbeat later.

"Nah, why spoil the surprise," she said as she buckled her seat belt.

"Hey, Dylan?" he hesitated as she met his eyes. "For what it's worth, I'm glad you were there with me."

She thought glad was an understatement for the relief just knowing he understood was, but she knew that they weren't the kind of people who threw it all out there for everyone to see.

"I'm glad too," she confessed softly, then resorted back to the playful banter they were better at. "You would have had a hell of a time convincing me to help you if I hadn't been,"

"Most likely. I could have done it though,"

"I'm sure you could," she admitted as Evan stepped back from the door. "Later."

He simply nodded then watched her drive away.


End file.
